Show solidarity with victims of slavery today

THE EDITOR: Reading reports from the emancipation celebrations gives us all a timely reminder of the outright horror of the Atlantic slave trade and the institution of slavery.

Rightly so, the reparations movement has begun its campaign of atonement with a push for the removal of all historical names associated with the worst atrocities of this barbarous system.

Ultimately, the Caribbean reparations movement continues to seek significant financial compensation for the 400 years of unpaid labour under extreme conditions of abuse, which included the most barbaric forms of torture and murder of so many of our departed African brothers and sisters.

However, in the long run it is going to prove difficult to get substantial financial reparations paid because so much time has passed that it is very difficult to convince today’s taxpayers in the UK, Holland, Spain and Portugal to fund these payments when they were in no way responsible for the slave trade and slavery.

Finally, there are over 40 million victims of modern-day slavery in the world today, with the majority of them living in Africa and India. So, it would be good for our emancipation leaders to publicly show solidarity with their modern-day African brothers and sisters living through the most unbelievable conditions of subjugation.

GREGORY WIGHT

Maraval